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Messages - pancaketom
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301
« on: March 05, 2021, 15:56 »
I think RF came before microstock.
It doesn't look like there is much left for SS to "innovate" to keep the investors happy, but maybe screwing the little contributors more and just barely keeping the bigger production places happy. Also, I think people still get non - .10 downloads, especially for video - so that is an area that can be "innovated". Then they can just lower that .10 to .05 or .01 or whatever. At some point one would hope the contributors would all bail - but most of us have shown them that that is not the case at .10
302
« on: March 01, 2021, 17:08 »
They nosedived a few years ago after their version of an RC scheme and lies about doubling our sales. Since then they have been bouncing around near the bottom with a "good" month every once in a while. No real difference this year, but sales are so low I probably wouldn't notice anyway.
303
« on: February 25, 2021, 14:20 »
keep in mind that the percent that you get is based on the image level (the lower it is, the less you get).
304
« on: February 12, 2021, 16:58 »
Not sure if I am right or wrong.
The page says that they are giving Unlimited access through API, nowhere it says that you can download unlimited.
Bottom line, I don't know if I care? I was thinking about the words in 2018 vs the words in 2021 and it struck me. Why do I care? I'm not a stock holder? If I get 10 for an API download, why should I care how they market the plan or the details? I'll still get 10 for a minimum.
So unlimited access, unlimited download, free API partners, instead of paying a fee to be an API partner. Why should I care?
Even worse, I hate to suggest this but maybe the new unlimited, free access is a good thing, and I'll get more of those stinking 10 downloads. Not excited about the potential or growth because of this new deal.
How will unlimited change anything for me? Will that be good or bad and does it matter at all?
why should you care? Well, you used to get .25 (or up to .38) for these "sales", now you get .10 The more success they have with these schemes the more likely the bean counters will decide that .10 is too much and they will drop it to something less. Also they will probably replace other sales that might have been for more.
305
« on: February 12, 2021, 16:44 »
Other than November all the subs have been updated to bring things up to double March. After November they are in the ballpark of what sales were before March in 2020 - except I am guessing that actual sales numbers of subs are now way way more and we get a very small amount out of the pool per sale. I think one month they briefly had the number of subs and the $ amount before they removed it. Sadly I didn't write it down.
$ were pretty good there in 2018, for some reason they were rather lousy in 2019 for me.
306
« on: February 03, 2021, 14:37 »
I thought you would actually have data from users who uploaded big batches vs. spreading them out rather than making a bunch of assumptions and modelling off of those assumptions. Information on rejection rates and search algorithm shifts based on upload rates would be very interesting. For example if you don't upload for X amount of time is your portfolio penalized or is it boosted if you upload? Do very large upload batches have higher rejection rates?
It certainly used to be the case that upload batches either nearly all passed or nearly all failed at some sites(you got a harsh reviewer or an easy reviewer). If a huge batch hit the harsh review and got nearly 100% rejected that would be a big blow. By spreading things out a bit you decreased the chance of everything getting rejected and it would be easier to resubmit the ones that were rejected out of hand.
One big reason to upload all the images now is because it seems that revenue drops every year - there are less sales for less money and the artist gets a smaller percentage from each sale. So if you could have uploaded everything in 2015 you would have made a lot more than uploading them now.
Also making 1.70 per image per month would be wonderful. I certainly don't make anywhere near that anymore. upload 100 images and make 2-4K $ would be pretty sweet. Presumably your average data comes from more professional stock image producers than I am.
I figure that as soon as I have an image ready to go it is worth uploading unless there are a few that are nearly identical in which case I might delay some to the next batch or if it is a seasonal image in which case it might be worth waiting a bit. (for example - upload Easter stuff from now to Easter instead of the week after Easter.)
The only time I have really had a heap of images ready to go and have to decide how fast to upload is when I join a new agency.
307
« on: January 22, 2021, 19:43 »
December 2020 was only about $800 less than December 2019. Overall, my 2020 year ended up about 11% less than 2019.
January 2021, however, won't come close to January 2020. Although we still have 10 more days, I predict January 2021 will be about $4,500 less than January 2020.
SS really is tanking. While my number of downloads are not too far off the usual, the income per download really is lacking. It seems as of January 1, 2021, I've had a bunch of low-earning sales. I don't think it's all due to the new commission structure. I feel like some deal SS implemented with buyers went into effect this year. A deal we're not privy to.
I think part of the new earnings was just to take more per sale, the other part was to enable them to make sales for much much less but still make money. Before they had to average over at least .25 per image sold and really more likely closer to .38 to make any money for themselves (it was probably closer to over $1 per sale before) , now if they just need to be above .10 - so they can cut their prices over 50% and still make money - now they probably need to make the sale for over about .30 on average. Remember they also get to keep all the unused portion of the subs packs too. Wait until they do the same for video - get ready for your ultra sub .10 video sales.
308
« on: January 21, 2021, 19:53 »
I'm 100% down from last January on SS. Last October was the only month DT seemed to do well for me in a while - and that was still pretty sad.
309
« on: January 21, 2021, 00:26 »
my November subs went up a lot - I think I wrote down what they originally reported, but the current report is definitely more than the 2x that the previous months have been.
310
« on: January 04, 2021, 14:03 »
The way I see it is we continue the long slow slide for contributors - or maybe bumpy not so slow slide. Lower prices, lower percentages, image and video numbers rising a lot faster than sales numbers. Probably a few of the little sites will fold or at least just start coasting - if they don't actually work on anything or advertise they can probably squeeze profit for a long time.
Personally the big 3 for me were Shutterstock, Alamy, and Adobe. They have all dropped, but SS the most - and then I turned things off there for good unless I just decide to suck the last of the pennies out of this business or they change something in how they pay contributors. I see the former as more likely). Both Alamy and SS took a bigger cut of each sale this year, and I see no reason for this trend to not continue.
Canva might be the only bright spot compared to last year - but they are basically just giving images away and not really telling us what we make per "sale". I suspect only a few cents. At least they doubled our March income for the rest of the year - although my actual sales never really hit that point.
The changes have been pretty demoralizing for me. Despite what SS might claim - kicking me in the teeth does not motivate me to produce better content or upload more.
311
« on: December 29, 2020, 19:12 »
I get the login page too, but just use the back arrow on the browser and it usually loads fine (microsoft edge on windohs machine)... eventually.
It is a pita, but not critical.
312
« on: December 21, 2020, 14:53 »
If the agencies keep track of sales the same way they keep track of and report things to us, then you bet they are making all sorts of mistakes. If you point something out to them sometimes they will fix it, and if they overpay us, they will definitely try to claw it back if they can, but I bet there is a lot of error and slop in their systems, especially as they transition to all you can download subs plans.
edited to add - I don't think this is something that is consistently done maliciously or to increase their bottom line, more that the agencies are not 100% accurate at keeping track of things and that for the few cents they or we would gain they are not particularly interested in spending the significant time and $ it would take to fix it.
313
« on: December 09, 2020, 18:19 »
Their own forum is full of posts from people, reporting earnings.
While the first rule of Fight Club may be that you don't talk about Fight Club... I'm assuming you can talk about Fight Club when you're at Fight Club.
Yeah, that's a good one. 
No one has come up with any answer to, why only him, why did Adobe close his account, which isn't closed? And if he's banned at SS why is his account actually active. Just a bit many convoluted contradictions in what he's saying and what's actually current.
And then, I don't post videos to YouTube with my earnings and don't post them on forums, even SS forum  , so actually this warning is kind of wasted on me or anyone else who doesn't do this kind of thing?
Going with your fight club analogy, people still post on blogs, other people on FB and YT and MSG and their own sites, and only this one poor soul has been targeted, for his simple and innocent violation of the rules.
I'll drop this, but one more note, it's in the TOS that we can't post earnings, so who's at fault here? SS for enforcing the contract and TOS that we all agreed with, or the person violating the contract? Why of course it's SS because they are the evil corporation. How dare they enforce the TOS that we all agreed with, when we started as a contributor.
One tiny edit, is that this wasn't in the TOS when I signed up. I don't remember when they added it, but it was one of their "take it or leave" changes to the TOS as they went from somewhat contributor friendly and an ok place to sell images to what they are now.
314
« on: December 03, 2020, 20:31 »
As others have said - the drops at pretty much all the agencies have killed most of my motivation, SS was just the last straw after a long string of kicks to delicate parts and gradually decreasing sales.
Recently as part of another effort I have been going through my old records all the way past my microstock days. From about 2007 to 2013 or so there were interesting little notes about BME and BDE and other milestones. I had BDEs that rival entire months this year. I check every day or few days when I am online, but usually I don't have much to add to any threads, so I don't. I think some of the rise and fall of microstock was unavoidable simply based on the numbers, but it could have been a whole lot better with a few decent agencies shaping the overall business instead of what happened.
I turned my SS port back on to get to a payout for December and the rest of my $ and to see how things were there - pretty sad - but it is turning off before the new year unless SS makes some changes.
315
« on: December 03, 2020, 20:17 »
I suggest a 50/50 split with SS - so calculate that out based on what tier you are. Probably about twice what they are offering you.
316
« on: November 02, 2020, 14:41 »
Nice work Steve, I remember a long time ago (pre 2010 or so) we had similar sized ports and sales #s - although the better results seemed to come from different agencies. Since then you have continued to work hard and reap the rewards, I have mostly coasted and my results reflect that (down a lot). I do wonder how much more you would be making now if things hadn't changed so much - or even if the agencies didn't get so greedy.
317
« on: October 22, 2020, 01:37 »
Do Canva actually answer their contact forms ....  ?
They answered me now, my question from August 31, about payment. Ok, they did not really answer, but replied. Reading the first sentence made me burst out laughing.
"Hi there, we haven't heard from you in a while. If you would like to keep this request open or if you would like additional information, just reply.
Otherwise, this issue will be closed on our side in 2 days. Feel free to open another request if you run into another issue!"
yup, I got that one after waiting a few months - they sent it at the start of a long weekend. I saw it a few days later.
318
« on: October 16, 2020, 15:48 »
Interesting reading about this initiative. The intersectionality of my specific demographic makes me think that this initiative is in no way available or meant for me, but I wonder about offering some $ to produce some content to be given away for free. I suspect I'd take it if offered, but as usual the details are in the fine print - for instance does all content have to go exclusively to Adobe to be given away for free? At some level that would be pretty serious exploitation (I'm not saying it is, but the specifics are pretty important here).
My gut reaction is giving away quality content for free will do more to hurt the creators than any initiative that benefits a select few.
319
« on: October 15, 2020, 10:36 »
Thank you all! In the interview with Alex, he explained many of these things. Our profit per sale has dropped by about 8% since the new system. We sell a lot of $0.1, but the more expensive photos make up for it a little bit.
https://brutallyhonestmicrostock.com/2020/10/06/interview-with-aaron-amat-super-microstock-producer-1-4m-images/
Saludos compaeros
wow, so even very large sellers still saw a drop - that really shows that even the 40% high contributor level was a money grab by SS, and every level below that is so much more (plus the January reset - although YOU should climb the levels quickly at this rate). in other news - congrats - that is the fruit of a whole lot of work - especially now.
320
« on: October 14, 2020, 13:54 »
Contributor relations are non-existent!
https://www.canva.com/p/username/ will take you to your portfolio and you can see how many images they say you have
I get a 404 error page not found when I try that.
you have to replace "username" with your username
other than that look at one of your images and then up in the right hand you will see your user name .. click on that and it will take you to your portfolio
The top right hand corner will tell you how many images you have
I did change the username - and used to click on my username on an image to get to the portfolio but that stopped working months ago - but it worked again this time (and the link was my username with a 2) thanks
321
« on: October 13, 2020, 16:21 »
Contributor relations are non-existent!
https://www.canva.com/p/username/ will take you to your portfolio and you can see how many images they say you have
I get a 404 error page not found when I try that.
322
« on: October 08, 2020, 16:49 »
I have made more this month so far than last month - actually a few good sales in the first few days did that, which goes to show how poor sales are in general there. In general if I have a good RPD I have a better month there - and when it is low (mostly low subs) I do worse. That said I have noticed a number of the higher % sales - eg .38 instead of .35 and 2.20 instead of 2.00
Overall my lifetime earnings vs time looks like a bell curve.
323
« on: October 06, 2020, 12:56 »
I am not very fond of their contributor relations.
I tried to find out how many images I have selling there (does anyone know how to do that other than just counting them in the portfolio or going through all the pages of accepted and not accepted images?) I asked a number of times and never got an answer, a few times they sent me something (probably automatic) saying they consider the request closed even though they didn't answer the question. Since they have a completely opaque and seemingly random submission and review system and are known to delete previously accepted images I have no idea how many are available for sale.
Don't get me started on how they change the numbers for the subs program and don't tell us how many or what images sell there. I guess after seeing how well they doubled earnings this month (hopefully better than 123RF did) I'll have to decide what to do.
324
« on: September 21, 2020, 12:27 »
After a microsoft windows update that seemed to change edge too (or maybe they changed the name) Adobe works again - I was trying to go straight to the page from a link, when that didn't work I tried a few other things without success. In any case it works again now and the problem was probably all or mostly on my end.
325
« on: September 16, 2020, 20:22 »
I never understood their acceptance or rejection criteria either. I haven't even bothered trying to send them anything since their latest "exciting" news. They have a history of randomly un accepting previously accepted images. I don't even know how many I have for sale there or any way of determining how many I do other than going through the list of accepted and not accepted images. "service" is completely useless. After a random amount of time they send you a non answer and say the case is closed or else they ignore the questions completely.
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